


A Mother's Love

by Ink_Gypsy



Category: LOTR RPS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-28
Updated: 2010-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-06 18:50:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Gypsy/pseuds/Ink_Gypsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Elijah gets appendicitis, he finds out he isn't too old to need his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mother's Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written For Mother's Day 2007

It's the worst pain Elijah's ever felt in his life. As hard as he tries, he can't process what he's feeling, doesn't understand what's happening to him. One moment someone is stabbing him, a moment later his belly's on fire. Focusing as hard as he can, he fights through the red haze of pain and realizes what he has to do. He has to call someone. He just has to pick up the phone and someone will come to help him. Gathering all his strength, he grabs his cell from the beside table. There are three numbers he needs to punch in, but no matter how hard he tries, he can't remember them. Then as if someone else is controlling his body, his fingers move over the keypad and after one ring his call is answered. "Mom," he says in a voice so faint he can barely hear himself, "something's wrong."

The ride to the hospital is a blur, a collage of flashing lights and disembodied voices spouting medical jargon like "It's a burst appendix" and "We could be looking at peritonitis." His only constant is his mother's face looking down at him. Debbie took hold of his hand after she called the ambulance and hasn't let go of it yet. She leans over and touches her lips to his forehead as if this is some boo-boo she can kiss away the way she did when he was a child. "You're going to be all right, baby," she croons in the same voice that soothed his skinned knees and fevers when he was little, and just like he did back then, Elijah believes her. Debbie's still telling him everything's going to be all right as they wheel him into surgery.

Elijah wakes to white walls and a nice morphine buzz, but it's Debbie's cool hand on his brow that he finds the most comforting. "Mom?" he croaks, his voice not much stronger than it was when he called her last night.

"Don't try to talk, Elijah," Debbie tells him. "You need to rest. They won't let me stay, but I didn't want you to wake up with only strangers around you. And I told them I wouldn't leave until I knew you were going to be all right."

"But you already knew," Elijah says groggily.

"What, baby?" Debbie asks, puzzled.

"You already knew, Mom," Elijah repeats as his eyes close and he begins to drift off. "You were the one who told me."


End file.
